


Guns and Roses

by orphan_account



Category: The Book Thief - Markus Zusak, Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humanformers, Note the capital S, Pre-Earth Transformers, Somewhere, Transformers as Humans, Weird Plot Shit, What Have I Done, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-21 01:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2450081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humanity's stories aren't the only ones Death remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guns and Roses

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Release My Soul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2525966) by [lalunaticscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalunaticscribe/pseuds/lalunaticscribe). 



> WARNING(S), various levels of severity: Blood and gore, mention of suicidal thoughts  
> [None of the characters will be acknowledged through name, just through how Death perceives, acknowledges, and recognizes them.]

***** I told you once that I am haunted by humans.**

**I am here to tell you that humanity is not the only species I am haunted by.**

**Their stories are not the only ones I remember. *****

 

* * *

 

I think there was a time when they all believed that there could be peace, those Autobots. And there was a time where there could have been peace, but that moment had long since passed when the war started; the war that rendered their home planet inhabitable. 

But the thing is this: humanity is not the only species I am haunted by, and these Transformers-they hide behind human faces. It would seem that you are not the only humans out there in the endless universe. It was just that these humans were made of metal, and their God was not that of a religion. Not that this makes them any less fascinating, because they are endlessly so.

Humanity's stories are not the only ones I remember.

i.

The sky was dripping. As close to dripping as it could get on a planet with inhabitants of metal. I've seen so many of them running at each other in battle, the Autobots and the Decepticons, thinking they are running at the other side, but really, they're running at me-and, to put it bluntly, there is no other side. No one is safe in this bloody war.

And speaking of being safe...well, being safe is a hard thing to be for who I'm going to introduce you to. 

In fact, they're going to look me in the eye in just a bit. Come with me. I'll show you something. I'll paint you a picture.

He is sobbing over a body, one of the pair that I've said hello to many times. All golden yellow and pitch black, that one. His companion is struggling to live. But I don't approach. Not yet. It isn't time, not for her. No, they are far too young to die, still barely out of childhood. Too young and too innocent. Eventually, though, I'll come for them. Just not now, and definitely not today.

_Not today_ , the golden one echoes back, _not today_. 

I can't help but admire the universe's sheer determination to keep on spinning. It is its nature, after all. Because when death reaches out, what does it do? The universe punches back.

And it is when I am gathering up the last of the souls from a recent clash-to put it mildly-that two of them meet me. Around them lay the mangled bodies of what used to be some of their kind. Injuries rendering the dead unrecognizable. Blood-choked, tortured dead. 

I wanted to stop.

I wanted to crouch down and say, "I'm sorry," over and over until they forgave me. For what? For taking the lives of those who they thought would come back alive. But, as you know, that is not allowed.

So instead, I wave. The one with honey-colored eyes looks tempted to wave back. But he doesn't. His eyes avert to the mangled bodies, to his blood-painted hands.

And he listens to the fading screams of the dead.

* * *

ii.

It has been days since he last slept. It has been only seconds since he last dreamt. 

It's starting to show, and he can't have that happening. 

We have been in each other's presence many times, the leader and I. Sometimes we were eye-to-eye. And every time, the sky was the color of his eyes: a drop of sunlight in a bottle of whiskey, with red and blue bleeding in. Warm and kind and trustworthy.

(The worst part is how he's always _freezing_. But he never asks for something to keep himself warm. They need it more than he does, the leader reasons.)

It's been weeks since he last slept. It worries me, sometimes, when people gradually begin to deliver themselves to my arms, even unintentionally. (Though it seemed that the leader was not doing this unintentionally.

I have heard whispers of suffering from the Prime, of loss and the lives of the innocent weighing heavy on his soul, but never those of suicide. There are secrets, I suppose, that even a Prime can hide from death.)

I was chipping away at a man's soul, and he didn't even notice. He didn't even care.

***

(Nightmares assault him when he is awake. They assault him when he is asleep. (Not, mind you, that there are many moments where he manages to.) The fearless leader had something to fear, after all.)

 

* * *

iii.

It's wet, and bloody, and so _red_ -her first impression of a genocide. Her first look at the blood-choked, tortured dead.

The only sounds left are the screams left behind by the tortured. She walks away from her companion and she's lost. 

But that's okay. _It's okay_ , she tells herself, _it's alright_ , and she can't _breathe_.

It is at this point that I want to stop and say a comforting word or two, but I do not. I wave at her companion, who does not wave back, who listens closely to the fading screams.

I don't know how all of them die, but I can tell you a few:

Bullets fly; candy-apple green is stained red.

Rocks fall; the golden-and-black one is dead.

Spark ripped out; the medic is dead.

It kills me, sometimes, how people die. 

***

 I see them again, the pair of golden yellow and candy-apple green, in a few days time. The former is whispering of chasing over ten, twenty-five, a thousand lifetimes until he finds the one in which the latter returns to him. ( _How endearing_ , I think. Ah, but he'll never burn as brilliantly as her-I let him be, rather than bother him with a heart-wrenching truth such as me.)

***

Her heart stutters. She struggles for life. Her spark is fading-a faint blue light, still burning as brilliantly as it always has: like a sun, like a star, like a galaxy.

I do not reach out. I'll come for her eventually-just not today.

No, not today. Perhaps another day. Another year. Another millennia.

Oh, how I have procrastinated on taking just this one soul. How I dread on taking her to Somewhere.

* * *

My name is a word used flippantly; thrown as though I am only a small part in this universe, this galaxy. 

The colors of the dead remain stained on my hands, as paint to an artist's; there are mottled browns and the bright reds of blood and the bottle blue of rain.

I can't help but to remember the faces of those whose souls I have taken to the afterlife, to Somewhere. There are the lives of the guilty, and the lives of the innocent, and the lives of those in-between who have never done anything all too important to make an impact.

They all weigh heavy in this theoretical heart of mine. I have no plan to forget humanity's stories. It will be a long while before I do. The stories of humanity are things hard to forget, forcing their way in. They are heartbreaking objects, made of glass, and if only I could change them.

If only I had a voice among the living.

*****A LAST WORD FROM YOUR NARRATOR*****

**Humanity's stories are not the only ones I remember. I guarantee that their stories will not be forgotten-and neither will yours.**


End file.
